


Another Hundred Decisions

by the100vaticancameos



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6669061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the100vaticancameos/pseuds/the100vaticancameos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After solving the Zero Matter case, Peggy and Daniel finally have their talk and make plans for the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Hundred Decisions

Peggy had almost gone home. She’d almost packed her luggage, said her goodbyes, gotten on the plane, and left Los Angeles. Step two had tripped her up. With bags ready and the Jarvis family already sent on their way, Peggy only had one last goodbye to give. She hadn’t expected it to be the turning point, but it had been. Of course, she hadn’t been looking forward to leaving California’s cozy weather for New York’s unforgiving chill. But the warmth of a set of arms was not the place she’d expected-or ever hoped-to find herself in that evening.  
She should have seen the signs. Her life was always dropping little hints. “Perhaps you only need one compelling reason to stay” Jarvis had said to her just before heading off. After Steve, well, she hadn’t expected to be kissing much. Or any kissing at all, for that matter. Daniel had just looked so smug sitting there. Her actions had not been “ill advised and reckless,” she had bloody well saved his life! “You’re talking pretty big game when it’s your life that’s on the line, Carter”. He was asking to be slapped. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have hesitated. Well, perhaps she wouldn’t have slapped Jarvis, but nearly anyone else! And to be called a hypocrite, it was the last straw.  
She had surprised Daniel, and frankly shocked herself when she pulled his face with both of her hands and kissed him. She had kissed him with all those emotions she’d been tamping for years. Maybe someone else’s opinion really did matter. Peggy wasn’t quite sure why she’d taken him into a lip lock. Certainly not to shut him up, but maybe to prove herself, in a way. Daniel was constantly playing out her emotions; silently begging her to open up, forget work and propriety. She’d never given in until today. And damn if it didn’t feel incredible.  
And now? Now she was nestled in the arms of the man who, just yesterday, was “Chief” and “Mr. Sousa”. It felt markedly off to mentally refer to him as “Daniel”. Familiarity wasn’t an emotion that she was well acquainted with. It felt like the scattered puzzle pieces of her life and emotions had organized themselves into a picture showing the perfect path.  
…  
It couldn’t be any more cliché. Well, maybe if he’d lit a fire, but the warm Los Angeles air made a fire impractical. That was one thing the woman lying in his arms was dead set against: impracticality. They’d been sitting on his couch for hours. At first laughing and talking. Talking, talking, talking, but eventually Peggy had grown quiet, her head on his lap, propped in his arms.  
She might be sleeping. He didn’t care. Their fingers were intertwined. It hadn’t taken long for her normally stiff physicality to relax and become close. He’d worried about that, in the back of his mind. On the nights that he’s allowed himself, for a few dark minutes, to dream about Peggy, and imagine their lives together. Violet had been sweet, light hearted and, well, hands on. Peggy had seemed physically distant. Stiff, withheld, withdrawn. But he’d hoped, dreamed, understood, that beneath the hard, shiny exterior lay someone he had affection for.  
“Peggy?” he questioned softly, “Peg?” gently turning her head to see if she was awake. She silently opened her eyes, looking directly into his. Rolling quickly into a sitting position, she pulled her knees to her chest, stocking feet nestled with his, heels discarded hours ago. (He still had no idea how she walked around, much less kicked butt in those things.) Hair a bit messy, she looked relaxed, calmer. After a moment of quiet thought, she sighed.  
“I’ve missed my flight,” she admitted.  
“I know”, he chuckled.  
“It’s expensive to get another.”  
“Howard would probably buy you one, if you’re sure you want to leave, that is,” he added softly. Peggy seemed hesitant, worried to continue down that line of thinking.  
“It’s so nice here in California. The weather is simply gorgeous, and the people are friendlier too! And you’ll always need help down here, I’m sure I could be useful! And I’ve been thinking that I want to spend more time with Rose, she’s such a lovely girl, and I know that…”  
He nodded along to her tirade, making encouraging faces and little noises of agreement. He wanted nothing more than for her to stay, and it felt amazing to admit to himself. He knew she was trying to convince herself, but that nothing he could say would really make a difference. She was always going to make her own choices, and it was best to trust in her judgment on these matters. But after a minute, he interrupted her ramblings.  
“Peggy, you can let yourself stay.”  
This caught her off-guard. There had been so much push-pull, so many confusing emotions crowding her mind recently that this beam of clarity, from the source of nearly all of her emotional troubles, no less, was jarring and unexpected. He took a deep breath, “If I’ve learned anything from you, it’s that life is where you make it. Your life was in England, and then you moved to America. You left family, friends, and ‘home’ to come here. And then you joined the Army. I bet that was a change. You moved around a lot then too. And then the war ended, and Steve died, and you worked with the SSR some more. All these changes, and you’re still you. Doesn’t that maybe make you think that you can live your life anywhere? That maybe you can live it with me?” He held in a breath and watched her face for rejection. He watched, noting the moment her veneer cracked, and the emotion came spilling out in a gulp of air.  
“Oh Daniel…” she sighed, falling back into his lap, head once again nestled in his knees. “But we can’t let ourselves get carried away” she announced, steeling herself, “we have to make arrangements, I’ll need all my things, and I need to get permission from the New York office, and-”  
“And nothing! We can worry about that tomorrow, when-”  
“AND YOU need to stop cutting me off!” she insisted. He put his head down, laughing self-consciously.   
“You’re right, Peg, as always. But, and I’m just saying here, we DID sort of save the world today. Don’t we deserve a night off?”  
“Daniel, don’t you remember? We did that last year.” But she kissed him anyways.  
…  
It wasn’t as difficult as she expected, with his leg and all. Not that it would have been a deal-breaker, but the convenience was nice. For the first time in a long time, every action felt easy and natural. In the morning, however, they were faced with the difficulties they’d left behind the evening before. Well, that Daniel had left behind the night before. And she’d managed to forget all the difficulties once the evening had reached a certain point. But, as cliché as it was, in the harsh light of morning (Daniel still didn’t own any curtains) Peggy was forced to reconsider her decision. The night before, she’d been weighed down with an adrenaline crash and a few glasses of wine. Daniel had forgone the drinks, but he always thought with his heart. She woke up early and made her way to his kitchen, in search of tea. Sadly, she was forced to settle for coffee.  
“Americans!” she thought to herself, almost more disappointed with herself for not bringing an armada of tea when she’d come to the states than with any rash decisions she’d made the previous night. When Daniel came down that morning, she began by berating him for his lack of tea.  
“Oh boy” he sighed, rubbing his hands over his face, hair adorably mussed, in Peggy’s entirely unbiased opinion. “Peg, it’s too early for this.”  
“Too early… TOO EARLY?” She yelled, impatient at being stopped mid-joke-rampage. “Daniel, I expected you to have the proper makings of a proper breakfast. That includes tea. You’re lucky to have me here or else I’m not sure what you would do without me! Why, Los Angeles might fall into some sort of, of, of a tea shortage if I’m not here to regulate supply and demand! I mean-”  
He put a hand on her arm.  
“‘You’re lucky to have me here?’” he repeated softly. “Does that imply a long-term stay?”  
With a start, Peggy realized that she had been speaking without thinking, but it was that exact lack of thinking that made her realize she simply expected to be staying in L.A. That’s the way she saw the foreseeable future of her life. L.A., with its ridiculous lack of tea and preposterous foliage, was home. Never before had she been so solidly positive about what the next decade or so held. She would stay, with Daniel.  
…  
3 Months Later  
…  
Life with Daniel was more perfect than she could ever have imagined. As soon as she’d made the decision to stay in L.A., a whirlwind of years of pent up emotions had been released. Peggy had spent most of her time at the SSR feeling restrained. She had always worried that if she showed too much emotion, people would chalk it up to her gender, and she refused to be the female stereotype. For entirely different reasons, Daniel had felt the same way. Repressed, stoic, unfeeling. This was neither of their natures, but situation had forced them to act this way. But, as soon as the gate had been breached, they spent several days holed up together; doing every cheesy, overly emotional trope they felt needed doing.   
They drank quite a lot. Wine for Daniel, whatever for Peggy. Which was mostly wine. Daniel had quite a lot of wine. Peggy decided to consider it grape tea, steeped a long time. With that mess out of the way, she drank with him often.  
They talked. Endlessly. About anything and everything. For the first day, they mostly relegated themselves to all the minor details of life they’d never discussed before. She realized she couldn’t name his favorite food, and he was shocked to learn she didn’t enjoy reading very much. He quickly supplied her with more books than she’d ever need. And later, they often went out to Daniel’s favorite french bistro, where Peggy constantly charmed the staff with her flawless French while Daniel looked on adoringly. After the beginning, they found themselves drawn back to the topic of each other. The first moment she noticed him. It was far later than the first moment he’d noticed her. His puppy dog crush. Her pretend ignorance. That time the others had made him accidentally walk in on her changing in the locker room. How stupid he’s felt. How embarrassed she’d been. How unimportant it all seemed in the rearview mirror.  
They danced. For hours. Peggy was slightly disappointed to find that awake-world Daniel wasn’t quite as elegant as dream-world Daniel, but it was clear that pre-crutch, he’d been incredibly graceful. She was saddened by the fact that she’d never get her fairytale dance, but loved how they learned from each other and worked around it seamlessly. Peggy, of course, could dance like nobody’s business. She’d been subjected to years of ballet as a child, and the grace and poise drilled into her from a young age had carried over into her adult years. Despite the discrepancy, they whirled away.  
They kissed. Constantly. It was just as perfect and sweet as Daniel could have hoped. Each kiss was a breath of relief. Years of pain and misery pulled away. Lightening him. Relaxing her.  
There had been logistics, of course, but as the days of Peggy’s stay turned into weeks, and then months, they lost their air of importance. The New York office required some placating, losing one of their best detectives to what was only supposed to be a short case was a blow, and Angie cried endlessly over the phone, bemoaning her loss of neighbor. The new people, she told Peggy in confidence, had very loud sex. This made Daniel privately glad that they didn’t live in an apartment building. In their house, the neighbors were far enough away not to be bothered by that sort of thing. And her things had to be sent over, and the post office had to be informed, but that was all taken care of, and rather seamlessly, and altogether too quickly by a slightly too eager-to-please young lady from Mr. Stark’s company.  
For those many months, Daniel’s life revolved happily around Peggy, leaving him little time to dwell on Violet, and his life that had been. Until one strange August day when she showed up on his doorstep with a worried expression. After some hurried small talk, they situated themselves in the living room with tea, for Peggy, and strong coffee, for Violet and Daniel. The couple exchanged a look of concern towards the lowered head of the nurse, staring into her coffee. After another moment of taut silence, she glanced from one set of concerned eyes to the other across the room, and started in.  
“You know the unsolved murder of Mr. Thompson? Well...

**Author's Note:**

> I so hope you enjoyed this! It's part of the peggysous exchange on tumblr. Comments and Kudos always appreciated.  
> I had a BLAST writing this. Now, as with all of my gift fics, a mini playlist inspired by the fic! Feel free to listen or not, as you wish.
> 
> If These Arms Could Hold You, by 3blindmice & Casey Hurt  
> Heavily, by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen   
> To Start, by Carry Hatchet  
> Oh, What a Life, by American Authors  
> Write it in the Sky, by Kina Grannis  
> Those to Come, by The Shins  
> Eternal Night, by Carry Hatchet  
> Midnight City, by M83  
> Whatcha Gonna Do (it’s Up To You), by The Cast of Agent Carter (of course I had to include this one!


End file.
